596 S 2nd St

596 S 2nd St is a 3-story building in Downtown San Jose with 87% of its floor area within daylight reach of a facade. This screen estimates 27 homes and scores it 79 out of 100 for office-to-residential conversion suitability.

CA-18 · Screened 2026-10-20 · Strong candidate

Where 596 S 2nd St is

Its block in Downtown San Jose, drawn from San Jose's own building outlines and street centerlines.

Suitability score

0–29

30–49

50–69

70–100

Already housing
Not screened
596 S 2nd St

596 S 2nd St and the 1,000 ft of Downtown San Jose around it. The streets are drawn at the width of the right-of-way they run down, sidewalks included, and named, and every building on these blocks is drawn. What is left open and stippled is neither: a surface lot, a plaza or a vacant parcel. The screened buildings are colored by the ramp above, the same one the district map uses, carry their score, and each is a link to its own page. Each casts a shadow as long as its measured height lets it, so towers stand out from the low buildings around them; the unscreened buildings have no measured height and cast none. 596 S 2nd St is outlined in its own score color at the outline it covers at ground level. Its windowless core is hatched. The inset places it among every building the screen covers.

Floor plan: 87% of each floor sits within daylight reach of a facade. The shading is daylight, darkest at the windows and gone 35 ft in. The hatched area is windowless core: 1,885 sq ft per floor that must be renovated but can never be rented as an apartment. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 50 ft from the nearest window. A–A is where the section beside it is cut.

Section A–A: cut across the depth of the plate, through the middle of the core. Daylight reaches 35 ft in from every facade, fading as it goes, and the hatched stripe left between the lit edges is floor that gets converted and can never be rented: 1,885 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 3,769 sq ft over 2 residential floors. The shaded ground floor is converted like the rest and counted as no homes.

OpenStreetMap maps it as a school. Downtown zoning permits it alongside offices, which is why it is on the map, but it is not office space, so this site does not count it as a conversion candidate.

Every floor carries 1,885 sq ft of windowless core — area that must be gutted, seismically braced and sprinklered but can never be rented as an apartment. Across 2 residential floors that is 3,769 sq ft of cost carrying no revenue.

Modeled conversion metrics for 596 S 2nd St, 2026-10-20.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate	79 / 100
Storiesfrom OpenStreetMap, “Notre Dame High - Manley Hall, way 39020027”, in place of the 65 ft LiDAR height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	3
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint	14,652 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	87%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	50 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable	1,885 sq ft
BuiltSan Jose does not publish a construction year with this data	—
ZoningDowntown San Jose	DC(PD)
Opportunity Zonecensus tract 06085501600, 2018 designation	Yes

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

40 ft of exterior wall for each home the screen estimates — enough for two- and three-bedroom homes across the plan.

The typical floor has 539 ft of exterior wall, and across 2 residential floors the building carries 1,078 ft of it in total, divided among the 27 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.63: a squarish plan, with enough perimeter for a conventional double-loaded corridor. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 13.5 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 596 S 2nd St scores 79 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 94, Interior depth 76, Scale 18, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 596 S 2nd St. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency87% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	94	45%	42.4
Interior depthdeepest interior point 50 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	76	25%	18.9
Scale27 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	18	15%	2.7
Financecompleted value covers conversion cost with 10% to spare, which tops out the component	100	15%	15.0

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 18 out of 100: 27 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Other buildings screened near 596 S 2nd St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 610 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

630 S 1st St
5 stories · 100% daylit · 32 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
about 610 ft away
2 Pierce Ave
7 stories · 80% daylit · already an apartment building
about 810 ft away
477 S Market St
6 stories · 97% daylit · already an apartment building
about 1,140 ft away
88 E San Carlos St
19 stories · 49% daylit · already an apartment building
about 1,580 ft away

A screen, not a feasibility study, from outlines and heights rather than plans: the method and how to correct a figure. If you know this building’s interior, you know what this model cannot see.